Lest We Forget

It seems like a lifetime ago, but I was robbed and sexually assaulted by a man who
had AIDS. He was drugged out and broke, needing a fix. He was a
stranger to me. But when I later saw him on the
street and called the police, when I completed the visual and the voice
line up, when I met with the attorney and the detective and told them my story for the 100th
time, they told me he had AIDS.

AIDS became very real for me that day. It hit home in ways that it hadn't quite hit me before. And in certain ways, I've never been the same. I knew how lucky I was to walk away from an experience like that HIV negative. I also knew that people all around me were dying. People were losing loved ones. It broke my heart. It still does.

Today I was moved by these blog entries by Terrence and J, and I thought about someone I loved who lost his mother, and someone else I loved who lost his father. I thought about the alarming rates at which people in the Black community continue to contract the disease, and I thought about the terrifying months I spent waiting for the results of my HIV test.

We tend to 'demonize' disease want to 'cure' aids, cancer - whatever by
'doing battle' with them. Is it not a vain aspiration to believe we can
fix samsara? Old age, sickness and death are natural phenomena. The
cause of death is birth. We all die.

Her words reminded me of Buddha's words quoted in the Dalai Lama's book Advice on Dying:

A place to stay untouched by deathDoes not exist.It does not exist in space, it does not exist in the ocean,Nor if you stay in the middle of a mountain.

[... from pg. 40]

These are truths we cannot avoid even if we try. Suffering and Impermanence surround us. And while Buddha taught us these things, he never suggested that we should throw our hands in the air when we cross paths with people who are sick or suffering. Buddha taught by example that we should care for the sick and dying... that we should do whatever we can to help them. Buddhists understand that they will grow old and die, but they don't deny themselves medicine or medical treatment to speed along the process.

That some people right now, every day, choose to apply Right Action and Right Effort towards a cure for AIDS is not vanity. It is service. It is compassion. One medicine won't cure all of the ills in the world, but if it could help alleviate some suffering where is the wrong in that? If wanting a cure for AIDS is greedy and grasping, maybe I'm just greedy and grasping. I want to see a cure for AIDS in my lifetime. And I am not alone.

Comments

I am not sure if it is grasping to want to see a cure for AIDS in your lifetime.

There are many kinds of suffering. Conventional healing may not lead directly to enlightenment - but it can be a compassionate action that relieves suffering, and it can extend lives, andmake them more peacfull, and give people a greater chance to find and practice dharma.

World AIDS Day barely made a dent on the national press here. Thank you for these posts.

A few companies and organizations had bracelet and pin campaigns... some major cities had walks... but were it not for the blogging community I wouldn't have heard much about it either.

I was watching an old episode of Fraiser yesterday... Niles Crane was upset because he wasn't being invited to the A-list parties since his divorce. He made a comment about the B and C list fundraisers being the ones for "last year's diseases". It reminded me of something J said in a previous comment about AIDS no longer being en vogue.

It's sad how little attention World AIDS Day is getting. I guess if the media won't jump on the bandwagon, it's up to the rest of us.